Robert Benson, a native of New Orleans, was educated at Vanderbilt University and the University of North Carolina at Chapell Hill. He taught at the University of Southern Mississippi, Southeastern Louisiana University, the University of Dallas, and the University of Georgia, before moving to Sewanee, Tennessee, where he taught medieval English literature at the University of the South.

Benson is an acclaimed writer of nonfiction. the Texas Review Press published his first book, Blood and Memory, in 2006, followed by his collection of essays, Wedding the Wild Particular, in 2012. He has published critical work on Chaucer, Andrew Lytle, John Donald Wade, Cormac McCarthy, J.F. Powers, and others, and he is a regular contributor to journals, particularly to The Sewanee Review.